IN BRITISH PRISONS
A TYPICAL STORY OF THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN SEAMAN WHO WAS
IMPRESSED IN 1810 AND ALLOWED TO BECOME A PRISONER WHEN WAR WAS
DECLARED--LUCK IN ESCAPING A FLOGGING--LETTERS TO HIS FATHER
DESTROYED--BRITISH REGARD FOR THE MAN’S RIGHTS WHEN THE AMERICAN
GOVERNMENT TOOK UP THE CASE--A NARRAGANSETT INDIAN IMPRESSED--TO
DARTMOOR PRISON--MUSTERED NAKED MEN IN THE SNOWS OF WINTER AND
KEPT THEM IN ROOMS WHERE BUCKETS OF WATER FROZE SOLID--MURDER
OF PRISONERS SIX WEEKS AFTER IT WAS OFFICIALLY KNOWN THAT THE
TREATY OF PEACE HAD BEEN RATIFIED--NOTABLE SELF-RESTRAINT OF THE
AMERICANS--SMOOTHED OVER WITH A DISAVOWAL.
Shall the men who suffered in prison because of their love of the flag
be forgotten in a story of the deeds of the American naval heroes?
The reader will remember that the British authorities acknowledged
that more than 2,000 Americans were serving in British ships through
impressment when the war broke out. In some cases when these Americans
asked to be treated as prisoners of war their request was granted; not
all British commanders were as brutal as those of the _Macedonian_
and the _Peacock_. For a manifestly truthful account of the treatment
these men received from the British there is nothing surpassing
the autobiography of the Rev. Joseph Bates, printed by the press
association of the Seventh Day Adventists. Because his experience was
rather easier than the common one; because it included the crowning
outrage at the Dartmoor prison when the war was over, and because
his story is amply authenticated by other printed accounts, a brief
_résumé_ of it will be given here to illustrate the life which the
unfortunates like him endured.
Bates, at the age of eighteen, was a full-fledged sailor, hailing
from New Bedford, Massachusetts, where his father, a soldier of
the Revolution, lived. In the spring of 1810, after a voyage that
terminated at Belfast, Ireland, Bates went across to Liverpool looking
for a berth on a ship bound to America. While there awaiting a chance
to ship, the boarding-house was visited by a press-gang that included
an officer and twelve men, who gathered in all the likely looking
seamen. Bates produced his papers, authenticated by the Collector of
Customs in New York, but was cursed for his pains and taken to a house
kept for the purpose by the Admiralty, where he went through the form
of an examination by a British lieutenant, who at once decided that
Bates was an Irishman, and the “protection” papers fraudulent. So
Bates was sent, on April 27, 1810, on board the ship _Princess_, where
he found sixty of his countrymen impressed in like fashion.
A few days later, on the occasion of a funeral which took nearly all
the officers ashore, these Americans knocked the bars from the porthole
of the room where they were confined and were forming in line to plunge
through it and swim for liberty, when they were detected. For this they
were nearly all frightfully flogged, a few escaping (including Bates)
because ordered to another ship before their turn came.
Bates was taken to the _Rodney_, where he was exhibited to all the
boats’ crews by her commander, Captain Bolton, who told the crews that
if ever the Yankee was allowed to get into any one of the boats the
entire crew should be flogged. Thereafter the _Rodney_ was sent to the
Mediterranean, where the life of Bates as compared with that of the
unfortunates sent to the African and other fever coasts, was bearable.
Bates notes that the ship provided two books for each ten men of the
crew. One was an abridged life of Nelson, and the other the prayer-book
of the Church of England. Bates did not approve of the service of that
church, but the boatswain’s mates “were required to carry a piece of
rope with which to start the sailors” when ordering them to attend
church-service as well as to any work. So he went through the forms
when piped to prayers. And when the band played “God Save the King,”
the mates were particular to see that the Yankee took off his hat.
It happened that the officers of the _Rodney_ were not eager to see
blood run on a man’s back, and Bates, by an active attention to duty,
escaped a flogging. His chief cause of complaint was that not one
of his letters home was forwarded. After getting transferred to the
_Swiftsure_ he happened to learn this fact through finding one torn
up which he had given to the first lieutenant to mail for him. But
by sending one ashore in a market-boat it reached his father, and
the father applied to President Madison to get a release. Governor
Brooks, of Massachusetts, also took an interest in the matter, and a
prominent New Bedford citizen, Captain C. Delano, took the papers to
the Mediterranean to secure the release of the young man. Delano was
received politely enough by the British Consul (the ship was at Port
Mahon at the time). The admiral of the squadron also looked into the
matter casually, but the result of all the efforts in behalf of the
unfortunate was that the British Consul agreed for a consideration to
supply him with money to buy clothing and some comforts beyond the
usual allowance of a common sailor. It is possible, too, that these
efforts also influenced the officers somewhat when, some months later
(it was in 1812), Bates learned that war had been declared and asked to
be transferred to the prison quarter as a prisoner of war. Anyway, not
only Bates but twenty-one other Americans were confined as prisoners of
war. But they were placed on a short allowance of food, were treated
with contumely when below, and at frequent intervals were brought on
deck, “where we were harangued and urged to enter the British Navy.”
Perhaps the one feature of English periodicals printed between the
years 1810 and 1815 that is most likely to anger an American, is the
indignation the writers affected toward the Yankees for “seducing”
British seamen into Yankee ships by the offer of higher wages than
the English rate. These exhibitions of British wrath in the face of
the fact that British ships held thousands of impressed Americans, is
not unlikely to prove stirring to an American, even at the end of the
nineteenth century.
Some of the American companions of Bates yielded to the pressure.
Bates was not that kind of a man, and after eight months’ resistance
to starvation, insult, and importunity, he was sent to England. There,
with seven hundred others, he was confined near Chatham dock-yard on
the _Crown Princess_, a big ship of which the little Danish nation was
robbed.
It is but fair to say that the prisoners here were not starved by act
of Parliament as they were in Milford prison during the previous war,
but their allowance was scanty, and eventually an attempt was made
by the officers in charge to cut it still further. At that the whole
throng rebelled, refused to take anything, and made such a noise in
the hold where they were confined, that the officers, who had their
families on board, were obliged to yield.
It is worth telling, too, that short as was the allowance of food, the
prisoners stinted themselves on it and sold what they saved in order
to buy an occasional newspaper. As these papers had with one or two
exceptions only American victories at sea to describe, they filled the
old hulk with rapturous joy--a joy that the officials resented, of
course, in brutal fashion.
How the prisoners sawed a hole through the ship’s side with a
case-knife and were detected; how they saw a Narragansett Indian, who
was among the impressed-seamen prisoners on another ship, make a dash
for liberty only to fail after a heroic effort; how eighteen from
the _Crown Princess_ did escape at last--all this makes interesting
reading. The number of prisoners increased so rapidly at the last,
however, that all were sent to Dartmoor.
[Illustration: Dartmoor Prison.
_From a wood-cut of a contemporary engraving_.]
“It was in the summer of 1814 that we were sent in large drafts to
Dartmoor. Soon we numbered, as we were told, six thousand. The double
stone walls, about fourteen feet high, broad enough for hundreds of
soldiers to walk on guard, formed a half moon, with three separate
yards, containing seven massy stone buildings, capable of holding from
1,500 to 1,800 men each. The centre one was appropriated to colored
prisoners.
“These buildings were located on the slope of a hill fronting the east,
affording us a prospect of the rising sun; but it was shut out from our
view long before sunset. On three sides one of the most dreary wastes,
studded with ledges of rocks and low shrubs, met our view.”
Here the prisoners were reduced to the most miserable shifts to cover
their persons. “A single bucket only, containing the food, was allowed
to a mess, around which they gathered with the avidity of starving men,
and each, with his wooden spoon, struggled to eat fastest and most.
Filthy, ragged, covered with vermin, they strolled around the yard
in the daytime, and, moody and despairing, gradually sank, through
degrading companionship and the demoralization of want and suffering,
lower and lower in the scale of humanity.” For there were European
soldiers and sailors as well as Americans in the prison. Many were
without hats and shoes and some became absolutely naked. The winters
were terribly cold. The water in the stream in the yard and in the
prison-rooms froze solid. Snow lay two feet deep on the hill-side.
There was no fire in the rooms. Yet these naked men were mustered in
the open yards, standing in the snow and storms, every day for an hour,
that they might be counted.
[Illustration: Dartmoor Prison.]
[Illustration: Dartmoor Prison.
_From an old broadside, with notes by one of the prisoners._]
Eventually, one Beasely was appointed agent in London for the
distribution of a fund supplied by the American Government. Beasely
remained in London to enjoy himself and sent a Jew clothier to supply
the prisoners with clothing. Bates was able to get money from home, and
the British Government paid him his wages earned during the two and a
half years he served in the British Navy. This sum is worth mention.
For all that time he received £14, 2_s._ 6_d._ So Bates lived better
than most of the prisoners, for there was a store for the sale of
supplies.
In December, 1814, came the news that the treaty had been agreed upon.
In February it was learned that the treaty had been ratified. And yet
not only were the Americans not released, the rigor of their treatment
was if anything increased. So an attempt to dig out was made, but an
informer was among them, and the plot failed. Appeals to Beasely were
made, but he neglected them or replied in a manner to exasperate the
prisoners. So they burned him in effigy, and the newspapers printed
a report of the affair. Beasely let the prisoners know that he was
indignant that a lot of common sailors should take such liberties with
an official occupying his dignified position.
Meantime, Captain Shortland of the British Navy, who commanded the
prison, undertook compelling the prisoners to eat hard bread instead
of fresh, with a reduced allowance of the hard bread. The prisoners
refused it and were starved for two days. Then they broke through the
gates and remained in a passageway before the store-house, in spite of
threats to shoot them, until the officer in command (Captain Shortland
was absent) gave them their bread.
This tiny disturbance occurred on April 4, 1815, about six weeks after
the frigate bringing the ratified treaty had returned to England. Two
days later some of the prisoners were playing with a ball in No. 7
yard. Several times the ball was knocked over the wall, and was always
thrown back by the soldiers when kindly asked so to do. Presently one
of the prisoners said in an authoritative manner, ‘Soldiers, throw back
that ball.’ And because it failed to come, some of the ball-players
said, ‘We will make a hole in the wall and get it.’
“Two or three of them began pecking out the mortar with small stones. A
sentinel on the wall ordered them to desist. This they did not do until
spoken to again. Aside from this trifling affair the prisoners were as
orderly and as obedient as at any time in the past.
“At sunset the turnkeys, as usual, ordered the prisoners to turn in. To
effect this and get to their respective prisons, the narrow pass-way
was so densely crowded that the folding gateway, which had not been
repaired since the 4th, and was very slightly fastened, burst open, and
some few were necessarily and without design crowded into the square.
“It appeared that Governor Shortland with a regiment of armed soldiers
had stationed himself above the square, watching for a pretext to come
upon us. The bursting open of the folding gates, though unintentional,
seemed sufficient for his purpose; for he advanced with his soldiers
and ordered them to fire.
“His orders were promptly obeyed, the soldiers rushing in among the
fleeing prisoners, and firing among them in all directions. One poor
fellow fell wounded, and a number of soldiers surrounded him. He got on
his knees and begged them to spare his life, but their answer was:
“‘No mercy here.’
“They then discharged the contents of their muskets into him and left
him a mangled corpse. Others fleeing for the doors of their respective
prisons, that always before had been left open at turning-in time,
found them shut, and while endeavoring to gain the opposite door, found
themselves subject to the cross-fire of the soldiers. This was further
proof that this work was premeditated. After much inquiry we learned
that seven men were killed and sixty wounded.”
[Illustration: _From a copy of a daguerreotype at the Naval Academy,
Annapolis._]
As it happened, in the rush of prisoners to escape into their rooms, a
British soldier was wedged into the mass and carried inside. As soon
as he was discovered a Yankee boatswain piped for order. The doors had
now been locked and the prisoners had the soldier completely in their
power. With their wounded shipmates before their eyes--some of them
dying--a cry for vengeance arose.
“Hang him! hang him! hang him!” rang through the building. It was now
the soldier’s turn to beg for the mercy that had been refused to the
wounded one who had knelt and begged in the passageway. It is with the
heartiest satisfaction that Americans read in this day that when a
vote was taken among the prisoners as to what should be done with the
soldier, the result was “decidedly in favor of releasing him.” He had
merely obeyed the order of Captain Shortland.
There was an investigation, of course. Sixty-seven men, held prisoners
because they had refused to fight against their flag, had been shot
down in a prison where they were under the most rigorous rules,
although the ratified treaty of peace had been deposited in London
more than six weeks before. They had been shot down through the spleen
of a British post captain. Mr. Charles King represented the American
Government. “Mr. King had rather, at any time, smooth over a quarrel,
than increase the exasperation by dealing sternly with its causes,”
says an old-time apologist for his act. He conceived it to be his
duty to smooth over the wanton murder of which Captain Shortland was
guilty. When “the massacre at Dartmoor was _disavowed_ by the British
Government,” he was satisfied.